Raison d'être
by julieneer
Summary: There is a way to bring back the dead, Lord Vader. You can bring her back. VaderAmidala, Palpatine, Han, misc.
1. Funeral i

a/n: The way of the Sith is supposedly that the apprentice takes up the mantle after the master is dead. Sidious, obviously, did not want to go with that route. Being that he is a Sith and so it _might've_ (I am so totally emphasizing "might" right now) been natural in his character to want to encourage Vader to take his place, I'm going to try to go with that.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust

**First installment**

_"We were two and had but one heart."_ – _Francois Villon_

The carriage that carried Padmé Amidala's body was brought to an abrupt halt by the squad of armed clone troopers in the middle of the street. The people of Naboo were shouldered to the side and a long, tense moment was drawn out where the citizens began to protest the clones' presence – the Empire's presence – at the ceremonial committal of the once great champion of the rule of democracy and against dictatorship, against war. The clone troopers simply held their arms and ordered for silence and obedience. A brave Nabooian cried, "Warmongers! Here, where the daughter of the Republic lies dead!" from the audience watching tensely as the troopers began to trap the carriage from all sides.

A single shot fired into the air silenced any other complaints.

Jobal Naberrie, near the body of her daughter, inhaled swiftly and wondered, in her grieving mind, if the Empire was there to take her daughter, degrade her body –

Perhaps carry her corpse through the streets, dragging her on the ground and delivering her back to Naboo broken and marred and still dead.

Jobal wrenched her hand from Ruwee and came closer to the carriage, to her youngest child of her flesh and curled an aged hand around the cold chill of her daughter's arm. Her long brown hair, beautiful in death, flared out dryly with white flowers. She was beautiful as a stone statue.

"Jobal, get back here," Ruwee hissed between clenched teeth while she tried to pry his wife from their youngest but Jobal slapped him away. "Jobal!"

"No," she snarled. "No. They will not take her."

Her fingers clutched at the hard, rigid arm of her daughter. There was nothing left to protect of her little girl but her body. There was nothing to kill or destroy but cold flesh. But they wouldn't take her, and Jobal was still Padmé's mother whether or not she was –

"Move aside ma'am." The closest clone to Jobal ordered. The white mask of his face caused Jobal to stiffen her spine.

"We are in – in the middle of a funeral procession! What is the meaning of this?" Jobal felt a quiver of fear that was overridden with motherly pain and suffering – and righteous anger.

"Ma'am, we're under orders to confiscate the body –"

"Confiscate?" Jobal rasped and felt her husband try to pull her away, though at the clone's statement, he too stopped. "You…you want to take her – take her from here? From her home? Hasn't enough been done to Naboo? _To her family_?"

"Ma'am," the clone tried again but a ripple of noise covered whatever he might have said.

Someone from the Nabooian spectators of the funeral screamed, others began to back away as if sharing one body. The crowd condensed before everyone exploded into a strange hybrid of fraught, excited and yet forced unhurried movement.

Death parted through the vast numbers of funeral attendants and He swept past the clones to stand before the carriage.

_The first hiss that entered Vader's subconscious was Darth Sidious murmuring to him, bent over him on the examination table and telling him Padmé was – that she was, was – _

"_I felt her! She was _alive_." _

"_She didn't die through your machinations, Lord Vader." _

"_How –" the realization came powerfully enough that even as Vader forced himself to stand on painful prosthetic legs he imagined his knees buckling. "The child." _

"_The records show she didn't deliver a living child…" Sidious paused and savored the flavor of Vader's ache, the grief wrought with rage and self-hatred. "She lost too much blood in delivering the child. Medical records," Sidious paused long enough to sidle up next to Vader and lower his voice respectfully, hushing his tone with empathy and pity. "Show that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. It was dead before it fully exited her womb." _

_Lord Vader's connection to the Force was an undertow of supreme power brought upon by power emotion. The raw power behind the outburst destroyed medical equipment, droids and the area and even as Sidious withstood its power with aged joints that creaked with the effort, he smiled. _

"_Nooooo_!" Jobal shrieked. She tore at her husband's arm even as he clamped her securely to him. Death was coming to take her – a dark figure swathed in black clothes. Her heart palpitated in her chest with an inborn fear she never thought she had.

Ruwee gripped his wife's head and forced her to face his chest. He watched the figure come closer and heard the horrible noise of breathing through an apparatus. The continuous, even stomp of heavy boots came closer and Ruwee, upon looking at the horrible mask felt his heart clench in fear.

For a moment, just a mere glance, the mask turned to he and his wife even as the man (Ruwee couldn't tell what was beneath the armor) approached his dead daughter.

What happened next was not shown in official Naboo records. The media that had been covering Padmé Amidala's funeral had been forcibly shunted out of the area and the report was suddenly canceled due to technical errors. The people of Naboo, when interviewed about their former Queen and Senator, only spoke of how she lived.

The stormtroopers' sudden coup didn't exist and the man in the black armor had never set foot on Naboo before.

Amidala's body, on official documents, was classified as cremated. Her tomb was erected and her urn remained in there, in the dark underground. The urn, unofficially, was empty and had never been filled.

The galaxy didn't notice the abnormalities.

"_It was – it, all of this was for her." Vader stood still and though he could not physically communicate what he felt, for there was not much of his flesh left, and his face was hidden, his pain seemed half-hearted to an outsider. To Sidious, who felt his apprentice's anguish through the Force and through their bond, it was all consuming, and the Sith master admitted to himself, could be cause for concern. _

"_Everything I did. All of this, all of it, was for her so she wouldn't – wouldn't, and the baby is gone, there's no one –" Vader's sentences were disjointed and disturbed. _

_Sidious frowned slightly, but only slightly. He could see his apprentice breaking at the seams. While having a mindless, obedient and powerful tool would be entirely useful to the Empire, the Sith cultivated Sith masters to continue the line. _

_He would lose his heir if he didn't take steps to rectify it. _

"_My friend," he murmured, drawing closer to the cyborg, "There is a way to change fate." _

_Lord Vader stopped his disgusting simpering – the babbling words of a child lost in the dark without a light. In that single measure, when Sidious had Vader's complete focus, he hated and praised Amidala for securing such devotion. Perhaps not all of his loyalty, but all of his devotion. _

_And the apprentice looked to his master for detail on the matter. _

"_There is a way to bring back the dead, Lord Vader." The coils in the Force, tightened seemed to buzz with energy and wish to spring apart. Sidious was irritated but pleased nonetheless that his apprentice seemed to be waking from his dream. "You can bring her back." _


	2. Funeral ii

a/n: after the next chapter, where the "Funeral" theme ends, things will be picking up a LOT. Any questions? Ask them. Thank you sodorland for the review

_"He fell into the precipice, by choice he entered through_

_Dark waters yet unspoken of, a loss he could not bear to be true." –_ The Gardener, _artist Lisa Gerrard_

Second installment

_"How?" came the rasp from the wretch from within the black suit. _

_Sidious smiled, almost. "The Jedi teach that the only way to resurrect someone is to give what you are taking from the Force. A life for another life. When one resurrects another, the necromancer dies." He came closer, robes rustling over the floor. "They teach that to give life, a life must be given in exchange. Is it always true? When a mother gives birth to her child, do they both not live? Is life not given then?" he came closer to his apprentice, launching his trap. "Or when both die, is the rule still sound?" he murmured softly, comfortingly, pityingly. _

_Even without visibly seeing his back straighten, Sidious knew he had touched upon a soft spot. _

_"It doesn't." Vader agreed, the breathing apparatus that kept him alive made his voice flat and unchangeable. The feeling Sidious felt behind it was injustice. Indignation. "It doesn't," Vader seemed to insist, to himself, to Sidious and probably to the Force. _

_"It isn't." Sidious agreed, circling his apprentice and he could feel the physical pain the prosthetics brought him. "The Dark Side has the ability to bring back the dead without trading a life for another. You can have your wife with you, at your side Lord Vader as it was meant to be."_

He could not quite feel her weight in his arms as he once had been able to. The cyborg body he'd been afforded prevented such intimacy. Metal and wires encased in leather could not feel what used to be warm skin and smooth muscle. Even the sensors in his prosthetics couldn't replace natural nerves.

The stiff, dead weight lying heavily in his arms was cold and unmoving. Her corpse was beautiful. Pale and with her arms clasped rigidly to her side holding between her fingers the japor snippet he'd carved for her when he'd been a boy.

Darth Vader bore down on her, leaning back to allow the bulkiness of his mask to view her. Her image was distorted due to the hemispherical goggles attached to his mask, but nonetheless something to be beholden. He didn't feel the emotion the young boy had; innocent admiration to the girl who was different and shown like a beacon to him for reasons he hadn't understood. He wasn't feeling what the Jedi padawan felt either; attraction and childhood love funneling and reshaping itself into something alive that had sewn itself into the fabric of his making.

He felt devotion. As a corpse, she was only beautiful. Alive, Padmé had been beautiful; she'd had ideals about the galaxy that could reshape everything for the better. Anakin had foolishly tried his hand at politics when he should have simply supported his wife. Yet another failure of Anakin Skywalker. Vader had never been meant for politics, but as Amidala, people loved her.

Vader was wiser than Anakin. He would not fail her.

He placed her down gently on the slab of the ceremonial stone hidden underground of Coruscant. The writings on the walls were an ancient language his master was teaching him. Obscure, occult script crawled from the ceiling to the floor. The slab was in the middle of it all, and it alone was untouched by the graffiti.

There was a kind of potency in the air of the room that would have affected a Jedi. It didn't affect Vader, not anymore.

He smoothed her hair from her face and absently brushed away the flower petals that had come undone. The flowers represented life lost. There would be no life lost here. He placed her in the middle of the slab and straightened her dress. Her abdomen was still round from the extra weight the pregnancy. His hand flattened over it, long black gloved fingers curling over the smooth hill of her stomach. Her body had no memory of the child.

That it was his failure to protect his wife stung. Padmé had her ambitions, but over all others, her greatest had been to have children. Many children, as was tradition in Naboo where family was held in high regard. She would have none.

None that she had bore already, and none that he would be able to give.

Her hips had widened to accommodate the birth and her breasts were larger. Her body would not know of child. It was the only thing Vader would regret about resurrecting her; the other things, the elephants in the room that would undoubtedly accompany her back, they could be rectified. Vader's hand moved from her stomach to her collarbone where he used to rest his hand to feel the fluttering pulse in the dip between the delicate frameworks of bones.

His hand wandered to her throat and in that moment when his knuckles brushed the small feminine apple that was still, he remembered what he'd done to that throat. He still wasn't entirely sure who he hated and blamed the most. He stroked the thin crease lines of her throat absently before he moved to her chin, the bottom lip where the red strip of her Queen days had gone and rested the tips of his fingers on her forehead.

Oftentimes he'd rested his forehead against hers, simply to hear her breathe and listen to her heartbeat. He had taken pleasure in the closeness they'd shared, but never had been particularly thankful of the simple fact that she had been alive.

Unconsciously, his thumb rubbed over her forehead as if he was just soothing away another headache for her. Smooth, uninterrupted skin was all he'd ever encountered.

Her skin had always been smooth. Coming from a desert place where sand was used to scour pots, pans, bowls, and utensils and served as an alternative to bathing water for slaves, his skin had only had a youthful softness in his childhood. He imagined she was still soft.

From the gloom of the shadows, Darth Sidious stepped out and looked down at the body atop the stone slab. "So young," he said with a disapproving click of his tongue.

"She will be again," Vader whispered. The breathing apparatus made it sound as if he'd only sighed.

Sidious moved impatiently and lifted a long hand to gesture Vader to move away from the body. The black figure did, though the helmeted head remained gazing down at her.

"Find her," Sidious hissed and came closer, placing a gnarled palm over Padmé's ribcage and breast where her still heart was entombed. "And show her the road home." He gathered the Force around him and began to wrap it around the still body of the woman, thread by thread.

It was time and Vader felt anxious excitement rush through him with a thrill.

When Vader opened into the Force, wrenching it apart to find her within it, it wasn't dissimilar to jumping into hyper speed in a fully armed warship. There was no stopping a juggernaut.

_"You will have to find her in the Force. If any part of her lingers here, she will be easier to find and pull through." Sidious no longer was the comforting grandfather, but the ruler who wanted a proper heir. Much as he was to loathe it, Amidala was key to Vader's successful rise. Key to his heritage. She may even make a worthy contribution to the Empire if she could be shown a different way. _

_Sidious knew enough about the way of the resurrection that he was confident that Amidala could be shown the way. _

_"Pull through?" Vader questioned._

_Beneath the hooded environment of his robes, Sidious rolled his eyes. "Yes. Pull through. The Force doesn't give up pieces of itself completely without a fight. You will have to find her and pull her through, and show her where to go." _

_"Show her the way back," it was awe-inspired. Vader seemed lost in a fantasy, of where Amidala was at his side as it should have been. As it would be. "Will it hurt her?" he seemed to snap out of his dazed state to confront his master. _

_"Only the same way it hurts to sew a wound, but it heals it and prevents infection." _

_Vader accepted the answer and began to make arrangements with his master to collect the body of his wife before they cremated her. While he plotted with Vader, Sidious saw the old ambition begin to rise in Vader once more. _

_Darth Sidious watched as love breathed life into the dragon once more._


	3. Funeral iii

a/n: ffnet hadn't recognized my separation marks before so sorry about that folks

**Third installment**

_Little fish come quietly your fins are sore and frayed_

_The ocean breeze enchanted you and led you onto shore_

_- _Come Quietly artist Lisa Gerrard

. . .

_The medical facility of Polis Massa sat in its own ruins. Crumbling walls and dented, fallen durasteel doors were the sights that greeted outsiders. Torn droids and broken medical equipment sparked and hissed. Above, lights flickered from an unstable power source. _

_Down the second left corridor from the entrance of Polis Massa's hospital, a broken door was half closed. A man in a white coat cowered from the towering figure over him. _

_Darth Vader loomed over him, fists clenched and the only sound that broke the steady rhythm of his breathing mechanism was the doctor's whimpering. His broken leg was twisted at his side unnaturally and the bone of his ankle that shone white with thin rivulets of blood peeked freely through his skin. _

_"I'm, I'm s-so sorry, so sorry but, that was, that was protocol. It was, we weren't informed otherwise, I'm s-s-sorry my-my Lord," the man whispered, clutching at his leg convulsively. _

_Vader looked down at him. "Where is the body?" there was no feeling in the question. There was no rage for a still little body that he'd never met before. He simply felt rage that it would upset Padmé. _

_"The lab. The lab has it," he rasped. _

_"Why?" Vader's boots crunched over cracked tile and debris as he stepped closer. _

_"The baby was signed up for, for organ donation and research." The doctor attempted to crawl closer to his comlink. Vader stepped on his hand and the thin fingers bones cracked under the heavy pressure. The doctor wailed softly. His throat was raw from screaming and the electrical fire smoke he'd run through only to come upon Darth Vader. _

_Vader came up short at the word 'research'. "Why was the mother not?" if possible, Vader sounded quieter and more menacing. "Why was only the child registered for research?" _

_The doctor trembled. "We tested her, she-she suffered from h-h-hydrogen sulfide poisoning. The child was –"_

_"Silence. You've outlived your usefulness." With a raised black fist the doctor knew no more. _

_Vader swept away from the room and made his way to the underground lab of the medical facility. The broken door hummed behind him as it attempted to shut. It was the only sign of life left of the hospital. _

. . .

Vader felt like a blind man, groping about in the Force for a single presence. Lord Sidious had said that if Vader couldn't find her then there would be no reviving his wife. It could take years Sidious warned, but since Padmé was recently…deceased it was likely she would be easier to find.

Vader reached out and with it, the constant pain from his ill fitted prosthetics was ignored and so was the excitement of having his wife back. He needed to bring her home first.

Searching through the Force was like attempting to find a single person in a galaxy, without means of having spies or power that reached far enough. Had his knees been made of flesh and bone, they would have buckled under the sheer intensity. Entering into the Force without a destination in mind and opening one's entire body to such a vast yet vague power had the ability to take away cognitive and physical capabilities.

Vader plowed through it. He had no destination but the feel of his wife. He remembered her when they'd first met; surprised and affectionate as one would be with a friend's younger brother and how she had seemed only to humor him. Their time at Varykino when something about him had made her relax and allowed her to let down that constant polite guard she had around so many.

He recalled Mustafar last; the hot, acrid planet scented with poisonous gases and Padmé begging him to come home. He hadn't heeded her then and he paid the price.

Now, it was his turn to guide her back. He wouldn't fail her, not again.

_Never again, I swear_.

Vader concentrated on the most recent memory of her alive, when she had been frightened and angry. Frightened for him and angry at him; she had loved him then despite all the disappointment that had gone through her system, and had he had a clearer head, perhaps she wouldn't have died. Perhaps.

Sifting through the recently dead in the Force was difficult. People died every second from different planets and different galaxies. Millions of beings died but there was only one Vader was looking for. The expanse of his vision within the Force widened and spread further, faster.

There was a time limit to bringing back the dead Lord Sidious had warned him. As it was, the time was shortened and there was a possibility that bringing her back would be a fool's task.

It would not be now. It was inconceivable.

He caught the tail end of what felt like royalty _dignified_ _haughtiness_,_ dignity and an inborn desire to at once rule and serve_, the whisper of despair and regret something like love turned sour, _would it be sour now? As they were it was possible that is would be the only option left for them after his master breathed life into her_, and a deep hidden hostility and anger, directed at… at…

Anakin Skywalker.

The figurative fist he'd entrenched in the Force grasped the fraying edges of a being slipping further and further away from him. He wanted to be gentle for a moment, but the very fabric of her being seemed to shy from him and continue onwards to a place that felt something like peace.

The very touch of the Light, tranquility and welcoming burned him as he maneuvered around it to grip her again. He felt her as a living creature he'd caught using a trap, writhing in his grasp in desperation to reach her final destination. She had no form and no size like this, she simply was and he recognized much and yet very little of her.

She was so honest in this form in her need to finish the final leg of her journey where she would undoubtedly rest in peace.

Despite all of this, there was a part of her that Vader searched desperately for.

A small, microscopic portion of her being, perhaps so far down that it couldn't even be considered her core, wanted to live. There was nothing more to live for, even Vader could concede that point for her husband was different and gone, and her child and way of life was destroyed.

Why she was yearning so badly for life when all was lost, Vader didn't know. All he knew at the moment that he felt it was that it was the opening he needed to bring her back to her body.

He latched on to it, hooking it to him like an inescapable anchor and pulled her through.

The Force clutched at her like a mother to its babe and attempted to free her. The Light burned and ached and healed even as it harmed him. Dragging and herding her back to the destination on the physical plain was difficult. She resisted but for that tiny part of her and the Light continued to carry her back.

Vader struggled more as they neared the place of her body.

Darth Sidious reached out, threads of his power clasping onto her like chains, shackles connected to her body where she would be placed in again. He whispered an ancient language, terrifying and forbidding even as it began to revive her body. She strained against the process, panicked and terrified. Vader was too focused on preventing her from being absorbed again to give her any comfort. His life support system was being stretched to its limits and time was running out. He felt his master struggle with the onslaught and Vader's heart palpitated in warning, there was no time, she would be lost again and forever and –

And then –

_Ba-bump_.

The Force screamed.

Sidious removed his palm from Padmé's breast with a small amount of disgust. He scowled down at her still form. Her heart beat was slow and irregular. She had yet to breathe and function completely but it was the end of his bargain.

Vader moved to Padmé's side, feeling beneath her jaw. The pulse that fluttered there was weak and erratic. He waited, unsure if the process would be able to save her. His master had moved away because he'd done all he could. He stayed in the shadows silently, watching.

Her chest moved without inhaling. Her body was going through old motions without any need for them. Vader waited and the sound of his breathing was the only sound in the room. He felt a vague ache come from his chest that grew stronger as more time passed.

Padmé's entire body convulsed and she gasped in air as her eyes flew open wide. Her hands clenched at her dress weakly. Her mouth worked without speaking as she tried to regulate her breathing. Vader pressed a heavy palm to her chest and forced her down. He let himself wrap around her and calm her. Her eyes were wild with confusion and fear and they rolled about in her head without settling on one thing.

She settled her gaze on him even as her body fought to regain its rhythm. She didn't know him, yet. "My…where…?" she wheezed and licked her lips. "My…my…babe…where…" she looked around, "Not…Polis…hos…" she was straining herself and so Vader pressed his fingertips to her mouth to silence her.

"Sleep." He waited at her side until her eyes slid closed again. It would be easier for her body to adjust while she was asleep. For now, he would carry her to his temporary quarters on Coruscant and watch over her to assure there were no complications.

When she was stronger, he would tell her what had happened. How she had died, that the Republic was gone and that Anakin Skywalker was dead.

When she would be able to withstand the stress of it, he would tell her that her child had died and he had no way of resurrecting him.


	4. Heavy and empty i

**Fourth installment**

**boredmasterjedi**, thank you and I'm glad you're liking the story so far. Hope this chapter can measure up.

_"But I do love thee! And when I do not love thee, chaos is come again."_

_- _Othello_, Act III by William Shakespeare_

She slept for days.

Vader had attempted to consult his master while he and his wife recuperated in the apartment in Coruscant but to no avail, there were things of Imperial importance that had to be addressed. Vader was frustrated at the sudden lack of communication, but mildly understood. In her time in the Senate, Padmé had gone home with work; official documents, meetings over the holo, vetoing or passing bills…it had never been very enjoyable to watch her work. Vader could vaguely recall Anakin shifting through the papers, creating a mess of it when he'd accidentally toppled her coffee table. He also recalled the sound scolding the boy had gotten.

For now, Vader would have to play Padmé's progress by ear and depend on the medidroid.

Next to him on a large bed covered over with a comforter, a down blanket and several sheets and pillows, was his wife. She was curled into the fetal position holding her stomach as though her abdomen gave her pain. The medidroid wasn't able to confirm anything, at least not until she was awake. So Vader kept vigil at her bedside in a large, dark red chair. He rarely left save for communicating with his master, his daily sanitizing regiment or keeping an eye on the news and current events in the front room.

Overall, the apartment granted to Vader was expansive and met all their needs. A hyperbaric chamber was being installed in the apartment next door where it would connect with this apartment, but until then, seeing as Vader was unwilling to leave his wife's side, he wouldn't be able to remove his helmet. For sanitizing purposes to wipe away sweat and grime and to keep his helmet clean, there was a makeshift pressurized chamber beneath the apartment building where medidroids tended to him.

His prosthetics were poorly matched to him and they ground against his bones painfully. He had to suppress the pain using the Force. It made it difficult to wield a lightsaber he later discovered. His movements were sluggish and mechanical. There was no finesse or grace to a sweep of his lightsaber. There were only harsh, chopping movements that seemed equivalent to a vibroaxe swing.

His frustration had caused him to meditate. Hardly a favorite pastime but as his wife was still recovering, he wouldn't take any chances.

Now, he sat near her bedside with his hands on his knees. His master had adhered to the medidroids' advice of regaining his strength and so there were no orders, yet. He simply had to wait and watch his wife while her body struggled to maintain a proper core temperature and overall rhythms of her body. A medidroid was placed close by to monitor her progress.

At different intervals, she dreamt. Vader watched the minute movements of a finger, the flutter of her eyes. All these things, he remembered them from when they'd shared a bed together. He could remember how she would twist her legs in the sheets and steal them from him. He recalled memories of her rolling onto part of his pillow, so close next to him that their eyelashes would touch.

He had no skin with which to touch her, he couldn't lie down beside her and she would not wake up to his face, not ever again.

He scowled but the pull of the skin of his lips caused him pain so he had to let his facial expression melt into a stern, neutral one beneath his mask. The anger that simmered beneath remained; coiled like a serpent laying in wait before a bird's nest.

He would never touch her, not without leather and metal and wires between them.

With her alive, where would they be after they reconciled? He was still her husband but would it only be in name? With his limitations, there would be no tenderness and comfort here. What would there be for them? Having her at his side was of the most importance but Vader was not as disillusioned as he had once been. Physical touch had been a requirement in their marriage – _Skywalker's_ marriage. Now that he could feel nothing what would Padmé have to say of it?

Anakin had been able to touch and feel and know her body as well as she had. Vader fell short of being able to share such intimacy. Inadequate, not just as a Sith lord now, but in the rank that any male species could hold anywhere.

Obi-Wan.

It always, _always_ came back to him.

His master and supposed friend turning on him, all of when he'd only tried to protect his wife. Slicing his limbs off and leaving him to burn and crisp under the fires of Mustafar. He'd left him to inhale the poisonous gases and wheeze desperately for his breath. Brother indeed. Now with the resurrection of his wife, there was a want behind the ability to be able to feel without using advanced sensors. The need had always been there to be rid of the pain and to be able to have his _own body_.

There would be no soft, lingering kisses at his pulse point or the whisper of a tongue tracing the shell of his ear. Gone were the lazy days spent lounging on the sofa eating biscuits and drinking wine, or tender mornings under the sheets talking about nothing in particular.

His facial nerves were in constant pain. He couldn't breathe without aid from his pressurized helmet. Nothing would bring back those times. Nothing would allow him to truly be husband to his wife again and he would forever live with that frustration and humiliation.

Kenobi.

He would suffer as Vader had suffered and then he would die.

He heard a sharp inhale to his left and he turned towards it. He gazed at his wife whose fingers were curled awkwardly into the dark brown sheets beneath her. Her eyes had locked onto his form and a noise came from the back of her throat while she turned on her side to face him. There was fear of the unknown, but none that she was unwilling to conquer.

Old feelings of pride rose up in Vader. A Queen of Queens.

She opened her mouth and tried to speak but coughed dryly. Vader reached for a cup with a straw in it and held it for her. She gazed at it warily. "It's water." He spoke and the static, electronic tone of his voice served to fuel the anger that lay beneath.

She drank and attempted to take the cup from him but weak muscles faltered. She pulled away from the water, and tried again. "Where…am I?"

"In my apartment at Coruscant," Vader spoke with his head still turned down at her. Padmé looked at him for a long moment while her brows scrunched in confusion. "You've been asleep for three days," he added. He was unnerved and irritated by the scrutiny he normally wouldn't have stood for.

Padmé stared at him and her sleep-laden gaze cleared. "Who are you?" her throat was dry and so it was just above a whisper.

Vader nonetheless heard her. "I've been told that you need rest and that you are not to strain yourself under any means. Your body is still adjusting." He stood and suddenly was a giant above her.

She craned her neck to follow him. Her lips thinned when he made to turn away from her. She gathered what little strength she possessed and raised herself to sit up on arms that quivered tremendously with the effort. Her breathing became labored from her exertion and Vader found himself hesitant to dismiss her so easily in the face of her will. "Who are you?" she pressed raggedly. Her nostrils flared and a sweat began to break out upon her temples.

Vader turned to her and found fear in her eyes. Fear of him, but mostly it was fear of the unknown. She was very much out of her element and it frightened her much more than she let on. The proud, stubborn attempt to not show him any fear was just so…_Padmé_. At once, her regal form annoyed him but sent a curl of want through him. It was what Skywalker had once called her "Senator face".

At the tail end of such a thought came a question: "Who was she expecting to wake up to?"

"My name is Darth Vader."

Padmé didn't fly into accusations or stupidly try running away or snarl unpleasantly at him. She remained calm though she couldn't hide the tremble in her chin.

"Vader. You call yourself Vader."

"It is my name," Vader could feel some puzzlement from her. He watched the quiver in her arms get stronger and the clear sheen of tears gather at the corner of her eyes. All the while her body continued to betray her weaknesses, Padmé remained firm.

"What have you done with my husband?" she whispered. The fear in her eyes grew. Her words were laced with dread like poisoned wine.

Vader felt his being hum in response to her agitation. "Skywalker is gone."

At her sharp inhale and the pale color that stole away what little color she'd gained back, Vader contemplated calling for the medical droid.

"Are you the reason for his – his…absence?" she stumbled while she blinked away gathering tears.

"He is not simply absent, Padmé. He is gone. He does not exist." Vader took no prisoners. Not even for her. Not on this. It was too integral to how they would be defined. Kenobi had likely told her his Sith name but not the true meaning of it. There would be time enough for her to get used to Vader instead of Skywalker. He didn't want to stress her out unnecessarily when she clearly needed to recover completely to even stand.

Padmé's arms could no longer support her. They trembled once more before she collapsed against the plethora of pillows stacked behind her. She blinked in pain and Vader moved to the intercom to call the medical droid. "R7-N9, the patient is awake."

_"Yes sir. Permitted to give protocol checkup on patient?" _

"Granted." Vader hadn't had time to cut the link off before he heard his wife speak again.

"Where," she swallowed against her grief, "Where is my baby?"

Vader froze. The true terror that had wormed into her voice didn't mollify him; rather, it caused an ache that was unfamiliar to Vader but something Anakin was accustomed to. There were many things Skywalker was accustomed to that Vader couldn't compete with. It added fuel to the flame.

"Dead. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck during the birth." Vader paused when he heard nothing from Padmé.

"A boy? I have…had a boy?" he had never heard her sound so broken before.

"He was a stillborn," he confirmed indirectly. Even as he started turning toward her, he heard a keening wail build in her throat.

She had turned her face into her pillow and the small hands clutched weakly as the sheets gathered around her frame twisted under her grip. She screamed again and tears slipped down. "You lie!"

"No. Not about this." He answered. For not the first time, he felt regret at not being able to save what had never been and what couldn't be saved. He came to stand at her side and a gloved hand hovered above her shoulder. It never came down.

"Nonononono," she murmured her mantra into her pillow. "It must be a mistake, there's a mistake or you're lying –"

"I am not lying." He snapped. "Your child was an organ donor."

"I never – I don't remember signing, I had no documents – I don't even _remember_…" her incoherent sentences were without end because she seemed to not remember it. Vader listened and the more he did, the more he understood. Padmé could remember Polis Massa and going into labor obviously. She did not remember that she had died.

He would have to ask his master about that, because Sidious had conveniently left that little tidbit out.

"I questioned the whereabouts of the child…I was told he was an organ donor and had been transported to the lab after his confirmed death."

Padmé turned her face away. It would make no sense to her. She cried into her pillows and was losing whatever water she'd drank earlier. Where there had been loud, throat-clawing howling in her loss, there was a resigned, deeper sense of sorrow that filled her and the room she occupied. This wasn't saying goodbye. This was the unwillingness to acknowledge that "goodbye" even existed here.

In her grief and silent sobs, where Anakin would have held her and cried with her, Vader stood at her side silently. In the twilight of Coruscant's orbital mirrors, he stayed with her until the droid came to do a routine health check on its newly awakened patient.

Even while the droid did its duty, he stayed outside the room and only reentered when the medical droid left. She was still curled into her fetal position with the back of her fist pressed against her mouth.

Vader sat down in his chair at her side and remained there.


End file.
